o him in the past--in that past of
indolence and easy content. Now he was on fire to put this rekindled
ambition to work, to tell the woman who had lighted it that it was all
from her and for her, that without her he had existed, that now he had
begun to live.

They had never found him so delighful{sic} as he appeared that night.
He was like a man on the eve of a holiday. He made a jest of his past
efforts; he made them see, as he now saw it for the first time, that
side of the life of the Windless Isles which was narrow and petty,
even ridiculous. He talked of big men in a big way; he criticised, and
expounded, and advanced his own theories of government and the proper
control of an empire.

Collier, who had returned from his unsuccessful search of the
plantations, shook his head.

"It's a pity you are not in London now," he said, sincerely. "They need
some one there who has been on the spot. They can't direct the colonies
from what they know of them in Whitehall."

Sir Charles fingered the dinner cloth nervously, and when he spoke,
fixed his eyes anxiously upon Miss Cameron.

"Do you know," he said, "I have been thinking of doing that very thing,
of resigning my post here and going back, entering Parliament, and all
the rest of it."

His declaration met with a unanimous chorus of delight. Miss Cameron
nodded her head with eager approval.

"Yes, if I were a man, that is where I should wish to be," she said, "at
the heart of it. Why, whatever you say in the House of Commons is heard
all over the world the next morning."

Sir Charles felt the blood tingle in his pulses. He had not been so
stirred in years. Her words ran to his head like wine.

Mr. Collier raised his glass.

"Here's to our next meeting," he said, "on the terrace of the House of
Commons."

But Miss Cameron interrupted. "No; to the Colonial Secretary," she
amended.

"Oh yes," they assented, rising, and so drank his health, smiling down
upon him with kind, friendly glances and good-will.

"To the Colonial Secretary," they said. Sir Charles clasped the arms
of his chair tightly with his hands; his eyes were half closed, and his
lips pressed into a grim, confident smile. He felt that a single word
from her would make all that they suggested possible. If she cared for
such things, they were hers; he had them to give; they were ready lying
at her feet. He knew that the power had always been with him, lying
dormant in his heart and brain. It had